From Rags

  ‘Live the way they do’, not ‘used to do’. Oh. Now Jaxxon understood what Lotti was all about; she didn’t believe that Connor had suddenly changed just like that. Jaxxon had to give her credit where it was due.

  “I tried to tell Anita Donovan that, you know,” Lotti quickly added.

  “You know Anita?” asked Anna, barely keeping the growl from entering her voice. Jaxxon had told her before they left for France all about what had gone on with that nutcase.

  “It was so sad how things ended between her and Connor.” Lotti shook her head. “But I had warned her that it was the only way it could end if she pushed things with him.”

  Jaxxon forced a dramatic yawn. “Oh sorry, it’s just that people who don’t just say what they really mean bore me so easily.”

  For a moment Lotti was lost for words. It wasn’t often that people weren’t intimidated by her beauty, and Jaxxon Carter certainly wasn’t. Now that her eyes had that famous, feral gleam Lotti was feeling even more ruffled. Finally she collected her thoughts and straightened to her full height. “I just think you’re foolish if you’re anything like Anita and think that you and Connor are really anything serious. People like Connor McKenzie and Dane Andrews don’t change. Take it from someone who’s just like them.”

  “Hmm.” Anna crossed her arms. “Funny you should say that…Dane’s actually married now. Did you not know?” If she recalled rightly, his wife’s name was Niki. Jaxxon had told Anna about how Dane and his wife had Anita staying with them where they could keep watch over the living time bomb.

  Lotti sneered but before she could think up a smart retort Jaxxon was speaking.

  “Sorry, hang on,” said Jaxxon. “You think you and Connor would be a perfect match – is that what, in so many words, you’re trying to say?”

  “Oh no,” giggled Lotti. “I’m not looking to get involved with anyone, but I’ll be honest with you, I’ve got every intention of using him for a while once you and him are done.”

  “You’re very confident he’ll want you,” commented Anna.

  A snicker popped out of Lotti. “Oh he’ll want me.”

  Vanity always made Jaxxon wince. “Well don’t let my presence stop you from making your intentions clear to him.” She swept a hand out in the direction of the door.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “I’ll head over to Kev and Lorraine with Anna, that’ll give you undisturbed time with him.”

  “He’s not exactly going to do anything with you here.”

  “You obviously don’t know Connor if you think that. He does what he wants: The End. If he wants you as much as you say, you’ll be taking him home with you tonight, won’t you?” Jaxxon held back her instinctive reaction to slap the tramp. If she hadn’t held back, it would have looked as though she was intimidated by Lotti and insecure about Connor, giving weight to everything Lotti was saying. In truth, Jaxxon was a little intimidated. Lotti was beautiful, even if a high percentage of her was silicon. And Connor, as Lotti had pointed out, preferred his sex life to be the epitome of ‘simple’. So, yeah, of course a part of her was panicking that he would take his out now, that he would say ‘It was fun while it lasted, Jaxx’.

  “You’re giving me permission to come onto your boyfriend?”

  “Don’t tell me you’re not as sure of yourself as you say.” As Jaxxon fully anticipated, Lotti didn’t back down. She gave a carefree shrug that said ‘You brought this on yourself’.

  As Anna watched a hip-swaying, arse-wiggling, hair-flicking Lotti stroll out the door heading for an unsuspecting Connor, she knew that whatever he did now would decide whether he was allowed to keep both his bollocks. Oh Jaxxon wouldn’t castrate him if he chose Lotti. No, she would say all’s fair in love and war and wave him off. But Anna…if he hurt Jaxxon, Anna would castrate the bastard.

  “Hi.”

  The seductive, sickly sweet voice came from behind Connor where he was stood at the bar with a bloke who used his hands a lot when telling his story. He swerved to see the sexy blonde from earlier licking her bottom lip and eyeing him as though she was a chocoholic and he was a Cadbury’s Dairy Milk bar. Lotti Something-or-Other.

  “I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself before. I’m Lotti, Lotti Rivers.”

  Rivers? No, he wouldn’t have guessed that was what it was. When she held her hand out he just glared at it. Why did Americans always like to shake hands? He might have taken it just to humour her but her expression, the tone of her voice and her body language all made perfectly clear what she wanted. “I’m with someone. Which you already know.”

  Lotti dropped her hand but refused to drop the issue. “Yes, I’ve met Jackie.”

  He didn’t bother correcting her. He would bet she knew what Jaxx’s name really was.

  “I was just telling her I’m a good friend of Anita Donovan’s.” It was impossible to miss the flicker of pure hatred that passed over Connor’s face. “I told Anita not to expect anything from you,” she quickly added. “But she was convinced there was more to things.”

  Her voice was like liquidated seduction and it was slithering over him. Her finger played across her impressive cleavage, drawing his attention to it. “If you have a point, make it.”

  She didn’t let his abruptness put her off. Instead, she stepped closer to him, making sure she rubbed her breasts against the arm he was holding his beer with. “My point is that I know you like things simple, so do I. The way I see it, you and I can help each other out.”

  He now had a perfect view of those plump breasts. Very plump breasts. The word plump couldn’t apply to anything else about her. She was tall and slender and was a woman who obviously kept in shape. And yet he wasn’t interested. If there was no Jaxx he definitely would have been. Lotti was extremely attractive and exactly the type he usually went for, but compared to Jaxx she was as ugly as sin. There was no one who could compare to Jaxx, could ever even come close. “Like I said before, I’m with someone.” He gave Lotti his back.

  Had he really just dismissed her? Lotti gawped. No one had ever done that before. Was this what it felt like to be ordinary? She wasn’t being rejected, she assured herself. He must be under the impression that Jaxxon will fly into some sort of rage. Lotti had heard she was temperamental like that. “You don’t have to worry about her. She sent me over here.”

  That had Connor swiveling around. “What?”

  “I told her I was interested in you and she encouraged me to tell you and let you decide for yourself who you wanted.”

  “Oh she did?” A smile crept onto his face. He could believe that. Jaxx wouldn’t show weakness, plus she’d find some kind of morbid enjoyment in the discomfort this would put him through. After scanning the room he spotted her chatting to Anna. Without removing his eyes from her he began edging through the throngs of people toward her. As though she sensed his gaze she looked right at him, and that was all it took to send a fierce, primal need rocketing through his veins demanding release, demanding her. Not any woman, Jaxx. There was no denying that she had utterly ruined him. She was without a doubt the most amazing creature…and he had no idea how he would give her up. That wicked smile of hers had his dick hardening to massive and painful proportions. He crowded her body with his. “I’ve just had a very uninteresting conversation with a blonde who swears you gave her your blessing to come onto me.”

  Jaxxon did a mock gasp. “Should I not have? I just figured it wasn’t my place to warn her off when we aren’t technically in a relationship.”

  He leant his forehead to hers. “We said there’d be no one else while we’re -”

  “Having ‘casual sex’, yeah I remember.” She shrugged. “Still, it seemed only fair for you to know who’s interested in you for after we’re finished and you’re -”

  At the very idea of that, his control slipped. He grabbed her by her nape and mashed his lips with hers, thrusting his tongue inside her mouth as he wanted to thrust himself into her body. Each stroke of her tongue against his seem
ed to be dragging him down deeper into that place where there was only her. He groaned. “I wish we were alone right now. Let’s just go.”

  “No, you can wait,” she laughed.

  “Don’t make me throw you over my shoulder again.”

  “If you do that everyone will know I’m going Commando.”

  His eyes fell closed and he groaned again. “It is such a good job I hadn’t known before now or I’d have lost my grip on my sanity long ago. Time to go, babe.”

  “Can’t we try reigning ourselves in like normal people?”

  He grinded against her as he spoke devilish words into her ear. “I need you, Jaxx. Don’t you want my fingers inside you? Don’t you want my tongue licking you and tasting you? Don’t you want me to fuck you hard the way I know you love?”

  His whispers were making her wet. Not good. “Connor,” she said in a reprimanding tone. But he kept up the whispering and grinding. “Alright, enough,” she eventually snapped. He was delighted that, as usual, he got his way which just made her want to punch him right in the face. That was up until they got back to the challet and he did all the things he promised; then she just wanted to collapse in his arms and sleep right there like that. And she did, with him holding her to him – something he did for the remaining nights of the trip.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  It was little more than ten minutes after Jaxxon and Connor’s session of morning sex – their last ever morning sex, she couldn’t help but note – was over that she heard her phone ringing. Once upright in bed she answered, “Hello.” She swatted the hand that reached around from behind her and cupped her breast.

  “I’ve checked your flight details,” said Ollie, “and everything’s on schedule, no delays.”

  “Good.”

  “The boys still with you?”

  Was she being paranoid or did he not sound his usual self? “Yeah, they’ve managed to get themselves on the same flight as us.”

  “If Anna wants Warren to take her home from the airport that’s fine but I’ll be picking you up.” It was completely non-negotiable, his tone told her.

  “Hang on a minute, what’s with all this abruptness?”

  He hesitated, as if debating how much to say. “It’s just important that I speak to you before you go back to your apartment.”

  “What? Why?” She stood up sharply, bracing herself for whatever impact was to come.

  “Just trust me, alright. It’s important I speak to you first.”

  “Not good enough.”

  “I’ll be waiting at the end of the terminal, don’t dawdle.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Ollie, what aren’t you telling me?” But he was gone. Pacing the room, she dialed his number but his phone was now switched off. As was Richie’s. As was Tony’s. “The bastards.”

  “What’s wrong?” It was the third time Connor had asked her yet still he got no response. Rising from the bed he approached her and seized her gaze. “Who are bastards and why are they bastards?”

  She exhaled slowly, hoping to calm herself. “Basically Ollie doesn’t want me going back to my apartment until he’s seen me. He said he’s picking me up from the airport. Something’s wrong, I could tell by his voice, but he won’t tell me. Conveniently, his, Richie and Tony’s phones are currently unavailable.”

  He wanted to tell her it was probably nothing but the fact that no one was willing to tell her anything until they were face-to-face with her didn’t sound good. Before he could say another word she was dragging out her suitcase and slinging her belongings inside. He tried to calm her down, as did Anna, but their efforts were futile. Connor wasn’t surprised. He suspected that Jaxx would be fine if she knew what had happened. Sure she’d be swearing and cursing all over the place but she would be alright. It was that she didn’t know what was wrong that had her like this; she couldn’t deal with it because she had no idea what she was supposed to have to deal with. The not knowing was cracking her up and leaving her the space to imagine all kinds of things.

  As such, neither he nor Anna nor Warren had been able to offer her any words that would reassure her. Her uptight, nervous mood stayed with her which brought her problems while going through airport security. Connor was thankful that the guards were more amused than offended during the brief body search when she told them to get their grubby hands off her or they’d each lose a bollock. Her mood also earned her anxious looks from other passengers. If they hadn’t recognised her as a celebrity they might have mistaken her for a suicide bomber or something.

  When they finally reached the end of the terminal at Heathrow airport Connor half-expected her to launch herself at Ollie and throttle him going by the murderous expression she was wearing. Clearly Ollie was just as worried because he immediately raised his hands in a placatory gesture. It didn’t help him.

  “You bastard,” she hissed when she neared him.

  “Shhhh, let’s go somewhere private,” urged Ollie.

  “Oh not a sodding chance,” she whispered abrasively. “Either you tell me right now what’s been going on or we’ll be testing how well you can balance on one bloody leg because I’ll have snapped the other one.”

  He sighed. “Someone broke into your place last night, trashed it and scrawled words all over the walls in corn syrup – obviously hoping it would look like blood, which it did.”

  Anna gasped. Warren said ‘You’re joking’. Connor let loose a string of curses. Jaxxon just stared at Ollie.

  Ollie saw the question in Jaxxon’s eyes. “Mostly ‘Die Bitch’.”

  Why Anna and Ollie thought they could talk her out of this, Jaxxon had absolutely no idea. Connor hadn’t even tried; he knew that she was the type of person who didn’t shrink away from the bad stuff but faced it and then took it on the chin. That was how she got passed it.

  Ollie made one last ditch effort to reach Jaxxon. “Luv, I promise I’ll tell you every single detail, I won’t leave anything out. You don’t need to do this.” He didn’t want her to; there was a big difference between knowing someone had invaded and wrecked your own personal space and seeing that defacement for yourself. Even though he had been prepared for the scene by Lily – who had let herself into Jaxxon’s apartment to leave her some milk and bread and other little bits for when she got back the next morning – the mess had knocked him for six. Hell, it had enraged him and it wasn’t even his apartment. She hadn’t yet spoken another word since he revealed what had happened. A swearing, pissed off Jaxxon he could deal with. But this hard, mute, unreachable version of her he didn’t know how to handle.

  Her focus still on confronting this, Jaxxon held her hand out to Ollie for the key of the new lock he had fitted on the door. When he gave it to her with a sigh she unlocked it and gave it a hard shove, making it swing open. The smell hit her first. Cracked eggs and stale milk and other such crap – once contents of her fridge now decorating her carpet. She might have gagged if she hadn’t been prepared for it. Plenty of times she had got back to her old flat to be greeted by foul odours; sometimes it was the smell of the blood of whoever broke inside, cutting themselves on the door or window in the process. Sometimes the sick buggers would even leave her a present by using the middle of her living room carpet as a toilet. So the smells she could overlook. Being no stranger to damaged belongings, she could even overlook the smashed vases and lamps and kitchen ware, could overlook the strewn of clothes that seemed to cover the floor of every room. Could overlook the overturned couch and mattress and could shrug at the rolls of toilet paper that were scattered everywhere like garlands. It was the words smeared repeatedly all over her walls that snagged her attention:

  ‘Bitch’, ‘Slag’, ‘Slut’, ‘Die Bitch’.

  “How do you know it’s not blood?” Warren asked Ollie as he put a gentle, comforting hand on Anna’s shoulder. Warren thought she was more unsettled than even Jaxxon who looked more curious than anything else. Oh she was enraged, there was no denying that. But there was no fear there to be seen on her face. r />
  “Don’t forget I have plenty of scientists and lab technicians working for me. It was easy enough to get them to test it.”

  “Why didn’t Lily phone the police?” asked Anna. “You said in the car that the police haven’t seen this yet and that’s why the papers haven’t got hold of it.”

  Ollie sighed. “I asked her not to. I don’t think we should get the police involved.”

  “What? How can you say that? Look around you. Whoever did this was sick.”

  “And cowardly,” muttered Jaxxon.

  Anna double-blinked. “Cowardly?”

  Jaxxon turned to her. “Did they have the bottle to come and say any of this to my face? No. Did they leave a signature? No. There’s nothing big and bad about breaking into someone’s place, making a mess and then running off so it doesn’t exactly strike fear into my heart. Same as with the letter.”

  “Letter?” said Connor, Anna and Ollie.

  “Last Sunday someone stuck an envelope under my window-wiper. Inside was a piece of paper that said ‘Die Bitch’.” And in her opinion, it was too much of a confidence for it not to be the same person who did this to her apartment.

  “What?” demanded Connor, Anna and Ollie.

  “Will you all stop talking at the same time, it’s freaky.”

  “You got a threatening letter and didn’t think to say anything?” Connor wanted to throttle her. “Where is it?”

  “I wouldn’t exactly call it ‘threatening’. Besides, it was just a little note. I binned it straight away. Come on, celebs must get things like that happening all the time.”

  “Indeed they do,” confirmed Ollie with a sigh. “So we can assume they also did this.”

  Warren nodded. “And that she has a stalker.”

  Connor frowned, skeptical. “A stalker who doesn’t make themselves known until she buggers off on holiday?”

  “Maybe he missed her.”

  “I know stalkers are, normally, stealthy but they do like for their existence to be acknowledged by who they’re stalking. I’m pretty sure Jaxx would have picked up on someone following her around.” The twist of her lips and the way she dropped her eyes bothered him. “Jaxx?”